What Could Have Been

A game sometimes go through a lot of changes before it emerges as a finalized product. Layouts get changed around, songs get moved around to other places, and sometimes the whole interface is scrapped! This page is for listing various concepts, ideas, and BEMANI transplants that KONAMI left out in the process of finalized BEMANI games.

In contrast with the Scrapped Songs and Cancelled Games sections, this page is more for concepts and ideas that were removed from finalized BEMANI projects, as opposed to songs (save BEMANI transplants). Examples of data include:

BEMANI transplants that were planned for a game but either were delayed, shuffled around, or just plain never were put it at all (for an example of the latter, masquerade being planned for beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro). Note that to qualify for this page, the song must have already been in a released BEMANI game beforehand.

Delayed releases (such as Asaki's second album 天庭, which was delayed two years due to his being sick).

Notecharts that never made to an arcade BEMANI release, despite data for the song existing in HDD data (i.e. Line Times's EX chart).

A copyright screen for North and South America is present in the game data, hinting that an American release for Resort Anthem was considered. This screen is also present in the data for beatmania IIDX 19 Lincle unchanged, presumably left over from the previous game.

EXPERT MODE

Although tricoro was the first beatmania IIDX game to not have EXPERT MODE, graphical data for this mode on the MODE SELECT screen can be found unused in tricoro's HDD. However, no further data for this removed mode has been found, so it is currently unknown if it can be forced to work by hacking.

Sound and HDD data for the song exists in tricoro, but it has no notecharts and was never made playable, being the only unused song with sound data that didn't appear in any of the following IIDX games. This might be attributed to its composers, NAOKI and jun, both leaving KONAMI in early 2013.

No volume 2 of the tricoro ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK album

The beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK Vol.2 album was never released; the closest thing to it is the second disc of the beatmania IIDX 21 SPADA ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK containing the remaining tricoro songs, but the release's product page never mentions that it is the second volume of the tricoro OST. The long versions of the tricoro songs that made it to the beatmania IIDX 21 SPADA ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK caused long versions of some SPADA songs to be delayed due to lack of space (some of them made it to the beatnation RHYZE vs HARDCORE TANO*C album).

The final cutscene of the ぼくらの宇宙戦争 event mentioned a final battle against the joker villains to be coming soon, which further suggests that a true final event for tricoro was planned. This final battle only happened almost two years later, in beatmania IIDX 22 PENDUAL's Qpronicle Chord event.

Placeholder graphics for overlays for POINT ZERO can be found on the tricoro HDD. As the dummy images used as placeholders only show numbers, it is currently unknown if POINT ZERO's jacket was based on the scrapped overlays for the song.

The original sequel to 灼熱Beach Side Bunny, titled 灼熱Lost Summer Dayz and made by both DJ Mass MAD Izm* and DJ YOSHITAKA at the time, was supposed to come out in Summer 2013 according to DJ Mass MAD Izm* himself, however nothing came out of it; it was likely the initial final boss of the クプロ・ミミニャミ・パステルくんのみんなで宇宙戦争!! event. This was supported by data of a collaboration song between both artists found on pop'n music Sunny Park, with said song's ID being replaced by Zirkfied afterwards. A reworked sequel of 灼熱Beach Side Bunny involving only DJ Mass MAD Izm*, titled 灼熱Pt.2 Long Train Running, would then appear two years later on beatmania IIDX 23 copula.

beatmania IIDX 21 SPADA is well known for its unfinished status. Event content being cut or not added altogether due to DJ YOSHITAKA becoming the producer midway throughout the game's life cycle and pushing for another IIDX title, and PASELI features, might have ruined plans due to the modified EXTRA STAGE restrictions.

After the second phase, Qprogue was supposed to get a third and final one themed after the fire island seen at the end of Qprogue DX. Map data of said phase was made but was eventually purged (including all its references) once Qprogue DX was added; Qprogue DX is referenced as "phase 4" in the data, proving that a "phase 3" was skipped.

It was supposed to house, aside some CS crossovers, at least into the battlefield and M.D.Injection, explaining why they were the only Qprogue DX songs aside 煉獄のエルフェリア to have overlays. It was also going to have the infamous Broken Sword as a sub-boss prior to 煉獄のエルフェリア. Placeholder images for the Broken Sword mini-boss battle in the fire island was left in the data (with the boss itself implied to be Tuonetar given the location and following the Last Dance story).

The third phase eventually did not happen and both it and a whole second unlock event were replaced by Qprogue DX as a last-ditch effort to quit development on SPADA and move to PENDUAL. Most of the songs and CS unlocks of Qprogue DX were likely part of this cut second event. PENDUAL's Q-Pro data referenced an "Elferia" army and an "Imperial" army which might have been the focus of the second event. 煉獄のエルフェリア could not have been the real final SPADA boss song as there wasn't a L.E.D. one yet (the only IIDX style without a L.E.D. exclusive unlock since L.E.D. himself started to make them in the series), who at that time was always in charge of final boss songs.

Interestingly, compared to other IIDX events, Qprogue's medal list did not sort songs in the order they were unlocked within the game - it was either random or sorted by when they were added to the data. Even more strangely, SUPER STAR -MITSURU- Perfect Revival medal entries were part of Qprogue's list, which added even more questions to the weird nature of Qprogue's development.

Overall, the only known song that was cut from Qprogue was Broken Sword, which premiered in PENDUAL instead.

Spada†leggendaria

Spada†leggendaria saw an eighth, truly final song being cut. A result banner showing the Spada†leggendaria chamber from above alongside all seven swords (including the usual "Spada†leggendaria - SECRET MUSIC UNLOCKED" text) was left unused in the data. This song is wrongly assumed to be Broken Sword (which was part of Qprogue instead) and there is no info on what it could have been.

It was likely going to be a ONE MORE EXTRA STAGE song (while SPADA ended up having none, it still had image text for it) but the newly introduced PASELI features in SPADA probably caused issues, and so the idea was dropped, leaving Verflucht as the final song of the event and last overall exclusive song of the style.

Phase exclusive song system

One of PENDUAL's core features was songs being exclusively playable in only the PRESENT or FUTURE phases. Aside the default exclusive phase songs being part of the Chrono Chaser event's unlock requirements, no other ones were added in the game and there was no development whatsoever on this feature. PENDUAL's sound direction comments mentioned more emphasis on the PRESENT/FUTURE phases by each director.

Chrono Chaser

Chrono Chaser was likely going to have a more regular cycle than what eventually happened in reality, as Say YEEEAHH and Reflux, made available late in June 2015, were instead added in November 2014. Negative reception of Chrono Chaser's extremely vague unlock system was what likely put the event on a long hiatus. After PENDUAL, IIDX went back having secret extra stage events like LIMIT BURST and Spada†leggendaria.

Unfinished overlays

Despair of ELFERIA's boss overlays data contained unused sprites for a second form; they looked identical to the last form of 煉獄のエルフェリア's boss, except colored differently.

共鳴遊戯の華's LIMIT BREAK boss attack sequence was going to feature every joker villain, as images showing their names were found in the overlays data. Strangely, the data also contained an unfinished sketch image of Lopica (共鳴遊戯の華's main boss character).

Mystery Line

Even though there were no clear evidences of Mystery Line being unfinished, it was the only IIDX regular event where you couldn't achieve a Platinum Tran Medal since their introduction but it also didn't have a Gold one either. The event's medal list in the files contained additional, unobtainable medal entries that had the same unlock requirements (unlock three Mystery Line charts) up to nine more songs; the entries felt more like placeholders, as the devteam just added songs to the event until the end.

Compared to any other regular IIDX event in recent styles, Mystery Line also did not have any sort of ending or congratulation message. L.E.D. announced a collaboration song with 黒猫ダンジョン before copula's release but it did never see the light of the day - Tomosuke himself had no song on the style while L.E.D. did not appear in Mystery Line.

ULTRAMIX was initally planned for the PC, and was meant to be a sequel to DanceDanceRevolution (PC). Screenshots of this game resembled more of its predecessor, and featured a new cast of dancers. However, it ended up shifting development to the Xbox, and the overall design was re-worked. This may explain why ULTRAMIX had very few new songs, due to its development.

Drivin' appeared in a sceenshot in ULTRAMIX3's website, and later in ULTRAMIX4's manual. However, the song finally appeared in DanceDanceRevolution SuperNOVA, suggesting the Japanese AC team wanted the song to debut in the arcades first.

In a beta demo, what was shown originally was very different from the final product. It initally featured AFRO and EMI in the character lineup, and the dancer models were adult-sized unlike in the final version where they were smaller. Routines and graphics were carried over from DanceDanceRevolution MARIO MIX. It was also to feature CHALLENGE difficulty.

Changes from E3 2009 version

DanceDanceRevolution (PS3) was announced at E3 2009. What was shown was drastically different from the final game. The interface resembled more of DanceDanceRevolution X2, and had dance stages and characters in it. It also featured Octo-Mode which made it into the final game, but only on CHALLENGE charts. It was also to feature custom themes, Edit Mode and DLC from all the mainline arcade games up to this point. While the DLC made it into the finished product, the song packs were based on the US PS2 releases instead. The songlist was also based on DanceDanceRevolution HOTTEST PARTY3 as well.

DLC packs

Evidence for several DLC packs that were planned but never released can be found in the game's data, including Greatest Hits packs based on the following DDR CS games:

In one of the trailers for this game, there was a different interface shown alongside from what was shown in the final game. The interface resembled that of Dancing Stage Fusion. This may imply that Fusion's interface might've been the original/ beta interface for this game instead.

MÚSECA

pop'n music

Line Times' EX chart, to this day, has never been playable in an arcade release of pop'n music, despite HDD data for its EX chart existing in every arcade game since its debut.

Planned URA charts

References to 3P palettes for risette, SANAE♥chan, and S・8・TARO can be found on the pop'n music data, named with the same preffix for the 3P palettes used in URA charts. Of these three characters, the latter two have, besides their respective portraits, proper colored sprites as well. Those can be seen in this video.

EXPERT MODE and planned theme

Much like beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro mentioned above, pop'n music 18 せんごく列伝 was the first pop'n music title with no EXPERT MODE since its introduction. However, graphical data for this mode can be found on the HDD, revealing that the original theme for pop'n music 18 was city/town based, not unlike TUNE STREET. This suggests that EXPERT MODE was dropped early on the game's development.

There is placeholder data for EXPERT MODE courses, which uses THE MOVIE's courses, further suggesting that the mode was dropped before the final theme was decided.

REFLEC BEAT

Sound data for this beatmania IIDX song can be found in the game's files. Its internal ID is the same one used for 男々道, indicating it was supposed to appear as part of the 8th Set (PHQUASE's SELECTION) of the BEMANI MUSIC FOCUS unlocking system, but was replaced.

SOUND VOLTEX

ミライダガッキ FutureTomTom

Planned songs

Data for several BEMANI crossovers can be found in the game files, but none of these songs were ever added to the final version of ミライダガッキ FutureTomTom Ver.2. Notably, all of these songs have appeared in the DanceDanceRevolution series (except Burning Heat! (Full Option Mix), which has a shorter remix featured in that series instead), with several being added to the series in DanceDanceRevolution (2014). The sound director of the ミライダガッキ FutureTomTom series, Yuichi Asami, would go on to become the sound director of the DanceDanceRevolution series starting in DanceDanceRevolution A.